Alan Plews takes a snapshot look at how business is shaping up in the five areas making up the Tees Valley.

Darlington, the gateway to the Tees Valley, boasts plenty of success stories.

Cleveland Bridge, based at Yarm Road, was the subject of an #8.25m management buyout deal in 2000 when the workforce totalled 140.

The company has gone from strength to strength and currenty employs more than 350.

"It was a big gamble to take over the business from Kvaerner - but it has paid off," says chief executive Tony Rae, who led the MBO.

As well as projects in the UK and Ireland, Cleveland Bridge is expanding its workload in America, India, Africa and China. It also helped put London's 'wobbly' Millennium Bridge back on firm footing.

The town, with a population of 100,607 and the lowest unemployment rate of the area - 2,060, or 4.1% - also boasts one of the top employers in our recent Tees Valley 150 list.

Mobile phone company Orange was joint 11th with Barclays in our listing, both lying second only to Corus in the private sector. The other top nine employers were in the public sector.

The company opened its first call centre in the town in 1998 at a cost of #11m. Boasting 12.4m customers today, Orange has been Darlington's largest private sector employer since 1996.

Today it employs 3,000 people and keeps going from strength to strength.

The Orange digital mobile phone service went into action in the town's Hutchison Telecom headquarters in 1994.

Hutchison Telecom took over Millicom in 1992 and launched its ill-fated Rabbit cordless phone service, which could only make outgoing calls. The service only lasted for little more than a year.

The town suffered badly during last year with 153 more jobs lost than gained.

The first casualties were at family business Dressers Stationers, where 66 jobs were lost as 150 years of trading came to an end.

Dubbed an 'infant Hercules' by 19th Century Prime Minister William Gladstone, Middlesbrough has often shown strength in the face of adversity.

The town grew up around the coal staithes at Port Darlington and the iron works opened by Bolckow and Vaughan.

The discovery of iron ore deposits in the Eston Hills saw the rise of iron and steel, heavy engineering, shipbuilding and associated industries.

Rationalisation plus changing world markets and recessions forced these industries to face major challenges after the First World War. Not only were these challenges met but the town began to grow as a commercial and retail centre, which was to play an ever-increasing role in its survival.

By the 1980s the docks had closed and the traditional industries had all but disappeared. Herculean strength had to be shown once more.

New purpose-built industrial units began to mushroom, new retail and leisure developments sprang up, strengthening the town's position as a leading retail centre.

Today plans to breathe new life into the Middlehaven site are at the heart of an ambitious #50m action plan, dubbed a 'once-in-a-lifetime' effort to revive the area.

The package is being pulled together by the Tees Valley Partnership, whose blueprint for change looks at everything from job creation and investment to training and leisure across the whole Tees Valley.

And more than 100 companies from around the world are vying for the commission to design Middlesbrough's new #15m art gallery and civic square in Victoria Gardens.

With a population of 143,200, 7,000 less than in 1991, the town has an unemployment rate of 5,524 (7.3%) but last year attracted 94 more jobs than it lost.

With more than 80% of the town's employment now in the service sector the council has recognised the importance of the town centre to its job creation objectives.

Council chief executive John Foster says: "We have to show our commitment to the regeneration of the town centre by improving the circulation system as a prelude to upgrading the major streets, pedestrian areas and public squares within the town."

Teesside University has rapidly improved its town centre campus, spending more than #50m on new and improved buildings over the last few years.

A new addition to the campus will be a facility for the Regional Film and Television Archives as part of its plan to develop a cultural quarter on campus.

This follows completion of new buildings on the campus, including the Innovation and Virtual Reality Centre, Enterprise House, the Learning Resource Centre and the new Centuria building for the Health School.

What would Gladstone have said today?

Stockton has always been a shining beacon in the area's industrial life.

It's shipbuilding roots can be traced back to the 15th century, the first recorded ship being built in 1470, known as Bishop Booth's great ship.

Made of wood it was held together by 32 tons of nails!

The birth of the industrial revolution brought with it the deafening sound of riveting. Heavy engineering came into its own, the area became world-renowned for its skills and workmanship.

But as death surely follows birth the demise of these two major industries was brought about by changes in the economic climate and the area became an employment blackspot.

Then Margaret Thatcher made her famous walk in the wilderness at Thornaby in 1987, on the site of the former Head Wrightson engineering shops. Blood began to flow again through the borough's veins.

Abbey National, Barclaycard, Churchill Insurance and NPower call centres all now stand on that once run-down Teesdale site.

Who cares that such centres were once called "the satanic mills of the Nineties"? They have brought hundreds of jobs and cumulatively are now among the area's biggest private sector employers.

The largest employer is Kvaerner Oil & Gas with 1,700 employees. It recently won a #40m order to help the Isle of Man to get rid of its rubbish with a contract to design and build an integrated incinerator.

Building work is expected to start soon, with completion due in November 2003.

With a population of 180,700 the borough has an unemployment rate of 5,386 (6.2pc), the second lowest in the area.

Last year it gained 655 more jobs than it lost, with 400 of those at the Wellington Square Shopping Centre.

The borough was given a million-pound shot in the arm last month with the announcement of plans to build one of the world's largest medicine sites at Billingham.

Avecia is to create almost 300 jobs at the #70m plant in a move which could make the area the biotechnological equivalent of Silicon Valley.

There was a time when ICI and British Steel were the kings of the Teesside and Cleveland areas.

But since 1993 pieces of the chemical giant have been sold off, mainly to US companies.

Huntsman, the largest privately owned chemical company in the world, snapped up businesses from ICI employing 1,700 on Teesside in 1999.

British Steel, now Corus, has had a turbulent history but, with more than 3,000 employees, is the region's top private sector employer.

Last year workers were told 1,100 jobs had to go, as part of a three-year plan to axe 6,000 in the UK.

However, the bad news was sweetened to some degree, with news that government cash would be available for regeneration within the region.

But the best news is that, through relocation, retraining, voluntary redundancies and a number of other factors, very few workers have lost their jobs.

Redcar and Cleveland is the third largest district in the Tees Valley, being home to 136,700 people. But with 4,306 people unemployed (8.1pc) it has the highest unemployment rate.

Over 200 more jobs were lost than gained last year. However, it is hoped that the opening of the new Regent Walk shopping centre this year will go some way to addressing that situation.

Demolition work has begun at Redcar's Courts estate, paving the way for a #26m redevelopment of the area which will include private and social housing and the revitalisation of Roseberry Square shopping centre.

There was a time when Hartlepool boasted more millionaires per square mile than anywhere else in the country.

That was when Great Britain ruled the waves but, as commerce evolved, the town became something of an economic blackspot. Towards the latter part of the 20th century it regularly had one of the highest unemployment rates in the country.

Today the pendulum is swinging back again as a wave of change sweeps through the town, with millions of pounds being poured into regeneration projects.

This change saw the official jobless figures for January standing at 7.9pc. They were regularly in double figures.

The multi-million pound Queens Meadow Business Park is being developed, which could eventually create up to 1,500 jobs.

The town is now heavily reliant on tourism. Last year brought a double success story for the Historic Quay and Museum.

It attracted 100,000 visitors, 38pc more than the previous year, and became the first attraction in the Northumbria Tourist Board area to successfully apply for the English Tourist Board's Visitor Attraction Quality Assurance Service accreditation.

On the industrial front, the fabrication yard of Heerema, Teesside's only remaining oil and gas offshore yard, has seen its fortunes improve.

The company is working on a major part of a #300m Shell Bonga contract for a major oil installation off the Nigerian coast.

Heerema has also completed a successful project on the BP contract for Magnus Enhanced Oil Recovery Project, which included fabrication of pre-assembled units. The order was of great significance for the yard, being the first secured from oil giant BP.

A different picture to 2000, when a decline in the offshore industry hit the area hard and Heerema faced closure as its order book ran dry.

One of the largest stable employers in the town is British Energy with its nuclear power plant.

Employing 430 people, with another 100 on contract, the plant, linked to the National Grid, has the capacity to light up the whole of Teesside and half of Tyneside.